“She doesn’t pay attention to you?”
There was a pause.
“Oh, stuff it,” he said abruptly. “I’ve had enough pop psychology.”
“Are you in therapy?”
“Of course I’m in therapy.”
“Of course?”
“Isn’t everybody?”
“Is it helping?”
There was that laugh again. If that’s what it was.
“Oh, sure. It’s been a wonderful success. That’s why I’ve taken my mother’s Valium. That’s why I’m calling you.”
“Who’s your therapist?”
“Oh no. You won’t trick me that way.”
“I don’t want to trick you.”
But she had. She had wondered if his therapist could tell her where he was.
Though they couldn’t call his therapist. Not unless he said they could.
Could she guess where he was? From the sound she’d heard? That was not quite a car or an airplane?
No. It wasn’t enough.
“I want to help you,” she said.
He was silent.
“Tell me where you are.”
“Find me,” he said.
“What?”
“If you want to help, find me.”
It was so frustrating. Nothing she said seemed to be any use.
“How can I find you? If you won’t let me?”
“You don’t want to find me. You just want to go back to your normal, happy life.”
She felt a flash of irritation of her own.
My life’s not so normal. Or so happy. Not since—
“If you don’t want to tell me where you are, tell me what’s troubling you.”
“I told you. It’s nothing.”
She was trying to help, wasn’t she? What gave him the right to be so impossible?
“That doesn’t tell me anything.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what’s troubling you?”
“It’s nothing. Nothing and everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean everything’s wonderful. I have a wonderful mother. I have a wonderful therapist. I have a wonderful father, when I see him, and a wonderful house. I go to a wonderful school. I have a wonderful everything, and I can’t stand it.”
Was he crying?
Had she got through to him? At last? Just when she’d given up?
Were things going to turn out right?
This time, were things going to turn out right?
“I’m glad you told me that.”
Her hand was clenched around the phone.
“But it’s not a reason to do something to yourself.”
She concentrated all her strength.
“Nothing is.”
She made herself speak slowly. Slowly and carefully.
“Now, I want you to tell me where you are. So we can send an ambulance for you.”
There was a long pause.
“No.”
His voice was very faint.
“I want—” she began.
“I’m going down to the beach.”
“I can hardly hear you.”
“Then I’m going to walk into the water.”
“Into the water?”
“Into the sunset.”
“I don’t want you to do that.”
“That’s too bad.”
“I don’t want—”
“It doesn’t matter what you don’t want.”
His voice was getting fainter.
“Which beach?” she said desperately.
There were beaches all along this part of the coast. Mile after mile of sand and Atlantic Ocean.
“Never mind.”
“I want—”
There was a click.
She pressed the phone against her ear, trying to hear something.
Nothing.
There was a hand on her arm. Marianne’s.
“He hung up?”
She banged down the phone. “Damn,” she said. “Damn, damn, damn.”
“You did everything you could.”
“He’s going to walk into the water. Into the sunset.”
“You did—”
She pounded on the table with her fist.
“I did everything I could, and it didn’t work.”
“No.”
“It didn’t work.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t.”
Marianne was standing beside her. She buried her face in Marianne’s dress.
“It never works.” She scarcely knew what she was saying. Words were pouring out of her, furiously. “They just go and kill themselves.”
“Some of them do.”
“I hate them. I hate them. I hate them.”
“Them?”
“All of them.”
“You’re really angry at her, aren’t you?”
She raised her head. “What?”
“At your sister Megan.”
Something inside her gave way.
Tears filled her eyes.
Yes. I am. I’m really mad at her.
She shivered. She wiped her eyes. She took a long, snuffling breath.
This was something to think about, later, when she got home.
About getting really mad at someone. And forgiving her.
“Wait,” she said suddenly.
“What is it?”
“ ‘Into the sunset.’ ”
“Into the sunset?”
“That’s what he said he was going to do. ‘Walk into the water. Into the sunset.’ ”
“Maybe,” Marianne began soothingly, “he won’t really—”
“But how can he do that?”
“How?”
“He left me a clue.”
“A clue?”
“I don’t think he meant to, but he told me where he is.”
“He did?”
“He did want me to help him.”
“Yes?”
“The sun sets in the west.”
“Yes.”
“Our beaches don’t face west. Not our ocean beaches. They face the Atlantic.”
“But—”
“It’s got to be a beach on a lake! And that was the noise I heard!”
“What noise?”
“I heard something go by, and I didn’t know what it was. But now I do. It was a motorboat!”
“Well—”
“And there’s only one lake around here that’s big enough to have motorboats! And a beach! Crystal Lake!”
They looked at each other.
“You may be right,” Marianne said.
“We can send an ambulance!”
“Did he give us permission?”
“He said, Find me!”
Marianne sat down. She picked up her phone.
“First I have to call our Home Director and get an okay.”
Kelly sat back, exhausted.
She’d done everything she could.
She knew she had.
And maybe, she thought, that was enough.
She opened her eyes.
“Do you think there’s a chance?”
Marianne was dialing.
“Yes. I think there is.”
Criminal Justice
by Albert Bashover
A bland, almost featureless seven story office building sits on the bank of the river Seine in Saint-Cloud, near Paris. Most people would not take special note of it unless they walked into the marble entranceway and noticed the relief on the wall. It depicts a globe of the world overlying the scales of justice; the globe is pierced vertically by a sword. At the bottom is the word interpol. Above, on the left, are the initials O.I.P.C., and on the right I.C.P.O., which are the French and English initials for International Crime Police Organization. This unimpressive building at 26 rue Armengaud contains the offices of Interpol’s general secretariat and is Interpol’s main office. The quietness of the halls belies the fact that it is chronically understaffed...
It seemed that everyone, from the top down, was constantly being asked to do double duty. Because of this, Maxim Nevsky was not particularly hopeful when Pierre Fernet, the new head of the narcotics division, sent for him. Maxim, who had a desk job in the documents section of narcotics, had requested field duty from Monsieur Frenetti, his immediate superior, many times but was always told that his work in document translation was much too important for him to be released for field work, especially when skilled Rumanian-Russian-English translators were so hard to come by. Maxim was not in a position to argue. With his background, he was surprised that Interpol had hired him at all, but he knew that the real reason for the refusal to make him a field agent was his age. Sixty was not so old, Maxim thought. He had kept himself in good physical condition, the result of his career in the KGB. He knew he looked years younger. Although his hair was white, it was still thick. His face was thin but unlined, and he carried his still muscular six foot height erectly. But Frenetti had his dossier, which clearly stated his age, and there was no way to get around that.